


In your skin

by anddirtyrain



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-15
Updated: 2013-08-15
Packaged: 2017-12-23 14:14:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/927462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anddirtyrain/pseuds/anddirtyrain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is not a goodbye but a see you later.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In your skin

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a spanish song called LLevame (Carry me). Memories are in italics.

Nothing will erase the memories in your heart  
This is not a goodbye but a see you later

X

" _You know…it seems a bit ominous to sing American Pie before a high risk mission" she told him, only half joking._

" _We'll be fine Nat, aren't we always?" He said, his grey eyes sparkling with mischief. They just hit their year as partners, and to mark the occasion (or so he convinced her she should) she allowed him the nickname._

" _This will be the day that I die…" His melodious voice continued singing until they had to strap on their parachutes and jump from the plane to a deserted plain in Syria._

_X_

She saw it before she felt it, practically in slow motion, the smoke that left the gun as the bullet raced across the field and sunk deep into her chest from the side. Her vest couldn't protect her there; as it had been ripped from a hand to hand fight minutes before. There was already a knife wound, blood flowing freely. The man must've taken notice and shot.

She'd been shot before, countless times. And before she worked for Shield, before she had Clint or the medics to fix her up. She had dug bullets out of her body with knifes, patche herself up with Vodka and ripped T-shirts.

But the pain, it was as if this was the first time. As if she was a child again, only 11 years old and standing in a deserted street in the slums of Stalingrad. Performing her first assignment and failing to notice a man sneaking behind her, and shooting her leg.

The burning pain washes through her, swallowing her whole. And she barely can hear Clint shouting above all the gunfire " _Natasha!_ "

She goes under.

X

" _Do you even have enough rank to make that proposition, boy?" she says, intentionally making a quip at his youthful looks. Even if she was younger than him, herself._

" _You can come back with me, or you can stay back and continue living like this. All I know is it's a choice, and you have it. Does that happen to you very often?" He said, lowering his bow._

_He was right, but she would not give him the satisfaction of knowing. There more men outside than she could take on alone, and if going with him to America was the only choice besides certain death. What her choice would be was pretty clear. It was survival instinct, she rationalized, and not a wish for accompanying the grey-eyed man and seeing for herself if there was such a thing as hope for a creature as lost as her._

_X_

When she opens her eyes again, everything seems eerily quiet.

"That's right, sweetheart…. just stay awake" She hears Clints voice and looks up to find him staring at her. "Help's on its way."

"What… happened?" she tried to get out, the blood in her mouth unrelenting and making it hard to breathe.

"You got shot and passed out." He answers her, her foggy mind recounting the event. "You're going to be fine. The pick up team's coming." He brushed loose strands of hair from her face "You just need to stay awake a little longer. Can you do that for me, Tasha?"

X

" _Don't you dare pull a stunt like that again, you hear me? Ne_ _ver!" She screamed at him when they were back at their safe house, nervous hands running through her hair "Fuck, Clint!"_

_She passed back and forth, trying to get clear her mind. She almost never lost her calmness. But this? He took a bullet for her. They've been partners for 3 years and he took a fucking bullet for her. He was wearing Kevlar , and the only mark was a bruise, but the act….the act just threw her. He took a bullet that was meant for her. She saw him fall, felt her chest constrict at the mere possibility that she would… What was he thinking?!_

_She asks him that much, and then she is in his arms, and his calloused fingers were the ones tangled in her blood-red hair, his hands hugging her closer to his body, a string of "I thought I would lose you, Nat…" whispered by him like a prayer._

_X_

Only now it was really happening.

She'd inflicted this kind of pain in others, a thousand times. She tried to breath in and choked in her own blood, as she'd made others do in countless missions. She knew what it meant, her lung was filling up with blood. She had maybe a couple of minutes left. Not enough to be saved. Not enough for saying goodbye.

It only seemed fitting for her to die this way. Karma really was a bitch, but a fair one at that. Staying awake was becoming harder by the second.

But Clint was here, holding her. Once more being her lifeline, the only thing she could try and hold on to. She always did count on him. To watch her back, help her; bring her back from the edge if she tumbled too close, to love her. Just like she loved him.

Now she could admit, couldn't she? She was dying anyway; she might as well be honest with herself. Looking up into his grey-blue eyes, she remembers the first time she realized she loved him. Even if she'd denied it all along.

X

_It took her 3 and half years of partnership, 2 bottles of the best Russian vodka, and him being shot and under a coma for almost a week. She didn't sleep, didn't eat, and was as dead inside as he looked on the outside._

_Natasha stood by his bedside like any partner would even though the almost flesh memory of loosing someone she loved made her choke. Made her want to bolt from the room. But she stayed, and though she would never admit it to anybody, she cried. Tears silently slipping down her face, with only one thought running through her mind. Don't you fucking dare do this to me, Barton._

_And 2 days later, when he opened his eyes again, she swears denim blue became her favorite color._

_X_

"Tash..…hey, stay with me….c'mon… Nat!" she faintly felt his fingers caressing her cheek, but it was fading, it all was. "Open your eyes beautiful…" He whispered and she tried to, she did. One last thing to give him, when he'd given her so much that she could never quite feel like she repaid him.

She looks up now, not feeling the roughness of the floor she was lying on, nor the pain in her side where she's pretty sure the bullet punctured her lung. The room is fading; black borders tinting her vision and closing in. All she can see is her favorite color.

X

" _Don`t leave a man like this Natasha…" he said as_ _she rose up from the bed they were sharing just moments before._

_The last thing she wanted to do was leave. But having sex with him was one thing and staying in his arms afterwards a world of difference apart. She knew how dangerous it could be, how her wall already cracked a bit as she caved in and decided taking him as a lover 4 months ago._

_It would be too risky to stay, to get comfortable having his muscular arms surrounding her and his breath warm in her neck. She didn't do cuddly._

" _Just because we're sleeping together doesn't mean you get to use me as your teddy bear." She answered him and stood up, only to be pulled back into bed by the archer's arms and pinned down underneath him._

" _You're more of a doll, darlin'" he said, as he convinced her yet again to cave in, his lips coaxing her way better than his words could._

_X_

"You know how I love it when you look at me." he says, through the tears, "Look at me, Tasha. C'mon." He cradles her face in his hand, trying to keep her focused while her eyes took on a faraway look.

She's tired, oh so tired. And it's not painful anymore, it's oddly comforting to be here in Clint's arms, where she always felt the safest. Something breaks her calmness, though, and she's confused by the rain hitting her forehead.

He brushes loose strands of hair from her face with his free hand, the hand not trying to keep more blood from spilling from her. She realizes the water's coming from his eyes.

_Don't cry for me_ , she wants to say but knows its too late, she cant _. I love you_ , she wants to say for the first time. Because she never did, why did she never say it? Why didn't she whisper it back after he said to her, holding her to his body at night?  _You saved my life, I owe you everything, I'm sorry, don't cry._ _ **I love you**_ _._

She tries to reach up with her hand, caress his cheek one last time, but she is too weak to do anything but try to breath. He notices her struggle and holds her hand up to his face, turning and kissing her wrist. "It's ok, I know" He says, and she's again surprised at how well he can read her. It bothered her at the beginning but she's come to rely on their connection so much.

"Don't go to sleep on me, Nat." He says, and his voice is so full of pain it breaks something deep within her. But she's tired and she feels weightless, and she can't help the way her eyes close as she coughs up blood one last time.

He pats her cheek softly, willing her to come back to her senses.

"Nat…I love you, you hear me? ... I need you." She fights the darkness like she fought so many beside him; she tries to feel his arms around her. "I can't do this without you, Natasha." She knows this is true; she wouldn't be able to keep working without him by her side either. Without her faithful hawk watching over her. But now she's going to watch over him.

She hasn't seen her whole life pass before her eyes yet, but everything she can remember has him in it. Everything worthwhile had him by her side. She hasn't seen her life pass before her eyes but she's staring into his as she goes, and there's really no difference.

X

You helped build my wings

And now its time to fly

_Carry me in your skin_


End file.
